Of Weird Relationships
by catimac
Summary: Leo Valdez and Nico di Angelo's relationship is... interesting to say the least.


He had to admit, he wasn't too happy when Jason assigned him and Nico to look for Frank. He didn't particularly dislike Nico, but he had never said as much as two words to the guy, and to be honest, he creeped him out a little bit. His dark, gloomy self made it look as if he was ready to spring out a couple of bat wings was enough to make Leo a bit uncomfortable, but the way Hazel talked about how powerful her big brother was, well, that just made the guy down right scary.

Nico didn't seem to enjoy his new task, but they both knew it was useless to argue. Jason was busy looking after Coach Hedge, who had gotten a nasty cut while fighting off a cyclops, and Piper and Hazel were on a quest of their own, trying to charm their way into scoring some nectar from a shop in the middle of the town. Frank had somehow managed to get himself kidnapped, but had been able to send them an Iris Message and give them an adress before suddenly ending.

So now he and Mr. Spooky were walking through the streets of Rome, trying to find a street Leo was almost certain they wouldn't find.

Since they got off the Argo II an akward silence loomed over them, and they had both been too stuborn to break it. Incidentally, he was pretty sure they had been walking in circles for about twenty minutes.

Stupid Frank. He just had to get caught by Gods knew what, forcing him to stop repairing the magic massage chair(an essential) and walk for minutes to no end with someone who made the trip as bad as possible.

Okay, so maybe he was overreacting. Nico wasn't that bad. Sure, he looked like he had just come back from being dead for a few years, and looking at him in that goddamn aviator jacket made Leo wonder how the heck he hadn't passed out from heat yet, but he hadn't given him a single death stare yet, which was a huge plus in his book.

At one point or another, The Ghost King nudged his arm. He pointed to a café with a familiar looking green and red neon sign. "Is it me, or have we been here before?"

"Uh" He said stupidly. "I think so, but I'm not sure."

"We have." He confirmed in a stern voice. "Do you have any idea where we're even going?"

He was taken aback. "Sorry I don't know how to navigate the streets of a country I've never even been in before, my bad."

They spent a good thirty seconds without talking, a tense atmosphere over them, before Nico stuck his hand inside a pocket of his toolbelt. "What-" His voice cracked. "What are you doing?"

His response was showing him the piece of paper he had written the adress on and that Leo had shoved inside his toolbelt before heading outside with him. "Figure it'll be easier if we just ask where it is." And before he could protest, Nico had already picked out a random stanger out of the croud that surrounded them.

_This should be good_, he thought. He remembered that one time an exchange german student had gone to Wilderness School, and he spent twenty minutes trying to explain where the bathroom was. In the end, the kid ended up having a very unhappy accident, and of course, Leo was to blame. If there was one thing he learnt, was that people who spoke english as a second language very often mixed "left" with "right" and "toilet" with "water fountain".

So, when the guy came back with very precise instructions on where the damned place was, his first response was "How in the Hades did you...?"

"Hm?" He answered. "Oh, that. I speak italian. My, uh, my mum was italian."

"That's cool. My mum taught me how to speak spanish." He thought about adding "before she died.", but after he got a knot in his throat, he decided not to.

They spent their next fifteen minutes with Nico guiding them through a mess of buildings, statues and people. He was pretty sure he spotted a monster once or twice, but when he was about to adress it, the other boy grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him away. He had noted how cold his hand was, but didn't protest when his grip got tighter as they pierced through a busy street. Only then, when they were facing the glass door of the red apartment they had been looking for for what seemed like eons, did he let go.

His finger hovered over the seventh floor button before pressing it. Suprisingly, the voice that answered it was speaking english.

"Yes?"

"Excuse us, miss, but if we could just have a moment of your time-"

"No, thank you, I don't want to buy anything."

"No, no! We just want to, I mean."

"Are you here because of the cat?"

Nico shot him a look of doubt, and Leo nodded, as if saying "what the heck, go for it".

"Yes." The Ghost King responded. "We're here about the cat."

After that the lady gladly opened the door for them and instructed them not to use the elevator, seeing as it was broken. As they were walking up seven sets of stairs, they made plans for Nico to fight any monsters that they migth have to face, while Leo looked for Frank in the meantime. He wasn't too excited about all this; Any monster that could hold Frank Zhang back, the guy that could turn into a bear and bite your face off, was definitely a monster he didn't wish to meet.

When they finally reached the seventh floor, hardly breathing and covered in sweat, Nico laid a hand on the hilt of his sword, and used the other one to ring the doorbell.

After only a few seconds the door was opened by a woman with dark skin and pretty black hair, that he guessed was around her thirties. In a sweet voice, she invited the both of them in, and the two boys echanged a look before agreeing.

She introduced herself as Martha and apologized for the mess before going inside her kitchen in order to get them some fresh orange juice. And it was messy, he noted. Toys and books decorated the floor so that you could only see pieces of the floor, here and there. He figured the reason for that was the child, who looked no older that four, that sat on the couch brushing a cat's dark black fur. The cat looked at the two of them like it was about to jump out of the kid's lap at any second.

"We found him on the street today." Martha handed them each a tall glass of the orange liquid. "Lucas fell in love. Such a pretty cat. I figured that such a well behaved animal must have an owner, but he begged us to take him home." She took a sip out of her own drink. "Tell me, how was it that you found him here?"

While Nico made up some story about this or that, he was thinking they had gotten the wrong adress. So far, nobody had turned into a monster or tried to kill them, and there was no sign of Frank. He was struggling to figure out what their next step should be, but the stare that goddamn cat was shooting him wasn't helping at all. It reminded him of when Coach Hedge wanted to teach Frank how to properly fight with a baseball bat, and he had given him the most desperate look he had ever seen. Come to think of it, the cat's eyes even looked a bit like Frank's. Weird.

Wait. No. Wait. _No._

It took every fiber of his body for Leo not to break out laughing.

"Well," He exclaimed, cutting the other boy off in the process. "We'd love to stay and chat, but Mittens here needs to take his afternoon medicine. He has a bad bladder problem, you see."

He could almost feel the look Nico must be shooting him. Martha, however, didn't seem to notice. "Oh, yes, I completly understand." She put a hand on Lucas' shoulder. "Now, honey, would you hand, um, Mittens, to the nice boys?"

For a terrible moment, it seemed as if the boy was going to refuse to. But, much to their relief, he only grabbed Frank's head and left a big kiss on his forehead, before unwrapping his arms from around him. Frank the cat jumped over to his shoulder so quickly he almost fell.

The boy and his mother accompanied them to the door, and after saying their farewells and disappearing behind their door, Nico slapped his shoulder.

"What was that all about? We were supposed to find Frank, not some cat!" He burst.

"For the love of Zeus, will you be quiet?" He hissed back, throwing a look at the doors around them. "Besides, we did exactly what we needed to. Didn't we, Mittens?"

"Mittens" jumped from his shoulder to the ground, changing along the way. Three seconds later, there stood a very embarrased demigod.

"Wait. What? No. Are you serious?" Nico looked like he wasn't sure if he should be mad, happy, or rolling on the floor laughing. The combination of the three was weird.

"I'm sorry." The son of the God of War looked like he wanted nothing more but to melt into the ground. "I was running from some monsters, so I turned into a cat, and they found me like this. I couldn't just turn back, so I went along with it. I sent that message when the kid was in the bathroom, and I- I'm sorry."

Leo giggled for a few seconds, before the three of them settled over a cold silence as they walked down the stairs.

"I can't believe we spent an hour in a half looking for this apartment because you were kidnapped by a three year old." Nico finally said.

"Four year old. And you try being stuck as a cat for two hours!"

He could've imagined it, but he swore he was The Ghost King smile.

**Woah it has been 784875784 years since I last updated hahaha oops**

**Anyways this idea just kind of popped into my mind today and I actually had the patience to write it down (I was supposed to study but shhhhh)**

**So yeah valdangelo is a really interesting ship and I'm just gonna go ahead and write a bunch of oneshots and put them here yeah that's cool**


End file.
